Reported is a study designed to test Hovland's principle of attitude change as related to attitudes toward science and science teaching. Hovland's research provided information that communicators who were perceived as being highly credible and authoritative are more likely to produce greater attitude change than are communicators perceived as less…

Staff burnout is a major hazard in outdoor wilderness education programs. Most susceptible are younger, first-time, idealistic, highly educated, overcommitted individuals who find difficulty in separating work from their private lives. Symptoms of burnout include decreasing concern, commitment, and enthusiasm; minimizing physical involvement with…

In this study, teachers were asked to complete questionnaires designed to determine how they handle 16 typical classroom problems concerning students' failures to conform to the academic achievement or social behavior norms of the school. In one form of the questionnaire, 156 teachers from 14 schools were presented with hypothetical profiles of…

This paper reports on a two-year study of a junior high school that was attempting to implement a new approach to student discipline. The study investigated the kinds of interventions that occurred during the two years and how the influence of these interventions were perceived by teachers. Implementing the new discipline plan involved university…

State and local school systems have developed comprehensive drug abuse prevention programs that appear to have little influence on the rising tide of teenage drug abuse. Classroom teachers, as implementors of such programs, frequently veto them or change them considerably. Forty secondary teachers were selected as research subjects to examine this…

An ethnographic study of small group reading instruction was conducted to learn how teachers' judgments of students' abilities influenced the way they grouped students for reading instruction and the effects of these grouping practices on teachers' planning and instructional behaviors. Two teachers and 20 students were observed over the course of…

Ethnography as a classroom observation method addresses itself to the situations, events, patterns, and contexts that exist in a classroom at a given time. A priori categorical observation and evaluation systems measure what the system is designed to "see," and may fail to record anomolies and salient events that affect teaching and learning in…

The purpose of this study was to determine the ways in which three tenth grade English teachers in a suburban school district established procedural and academic routines. Two classes of each teacher were videotaped for the first ten days of the school year. The teachers were selected because they taught students of comparable ability, and because…

Internal and external factors that influence student motivation are considered from the perspectives of the student and of the teacher. It has been found that the student brings to the learning situation characteristics that have a direct bearing on individual motivation. High self esteem and level of aspiration are present in a motivated student,…

A study was conducted to describe the characteristics and effects of the verbal feedback offered by teachers to student miscues occurring during group oral reading instruction. Analyses were also made of the ways in which teachers varied feedback between students at different ability levels. The subjects were eight second grade teachers and their…

Data derived from a year-long study of 43 algebra classes in 13 high schools were collected to assess the differences between high-inference and low-inference measures of teacher behavior as predictors of pupil achievement and attitude change. The high-inference systems rated characteristics such as enthusiasm and clarity while low-inference…

This report describes classroom observation techniques used to record the behavior of educational specialists (teachers) and students in a kindergarten and a first grade classroom of the Kamehameha Early Education Program (KEEP). Classroom behavior was observed and recorded daily during the 1973-1974 school year. Each student was observed three…

This booklet contains two essays on ethics for early childhood educators. The first essay discusses the meaning of a code of ethics, the importance of a code of ethics for working with preschool children, ethical conflicts in day care and preschool work, and steps which may be taken to help early childhood workers resolve these conflicts. Ethical…

As a part of a longitudinal study of learning in open plan and conventional design classrooms, the present study focuses on school design and its influence on selected behavior of pupils and teachers. The behaviors of pupils and their teachers in eleven learning areas of open plan and seven of conventional design were observed. Among the 18…

The debate about appropriate student-teacher authority relations in schools has persisted at least since the movement for "progressive education" in the 1920's, and it is reflected today in the debate between "open" education programs and "traditional" education programs. This paper, based on data from 7,361 students in elementary and secondary…